Scripting News for 7/24/2007

Wired: “Blogging is not about making friends, it’s about expressing yourself truthfully and in the process providing some hitherto unforeseen insight into an important issue or topic of the day.” Agreed.

News just in that baseball commissioner Bud Selig will come to San Francisco to watch Barry Bonds try to tie and then set the all-time home run record.

The cloud over his accomplishment makes this a difficult decision, but I think this is the right choice. Baseball is our national sport, and the conditions under which the game is played always changing. When Hank Aaron played there was no interleague play, no designated hitter. For much of his career there was no baseball on the west coast, so travel was very different, and when he started his career baseball was segregated.

The two accomplishments are comparable, for sure, but not exactly. There’s no doubt that Hank Aarron earned a place in baseball history, though his accomplishment has in no way diminished the accomplishment of his predecessor, Babe Ruth, and if Bonds surpasses Aaron, as seems very likely, we’ll still remember Aaron being the great player and role model that he was.

Barry Bonds has done what no other player of his generation has done, and like it or not, performance drugs are a part of baseball today. Whether Bonds took the drugs or not, his record is important and must be recognized by all who love the sport.

And by the way, this would be a great time to forgive Pete Rose, and let him join the Hall of Fame.

I had lunch a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco with Fred Wilson, who has become a regular cross-blog sparring partner of mine. It’s funny that two people who seem to get along so well face to face have such big disconnects in the blogosphere.

For example, Fred was one of the people who suggested that the ability to opt-out was the answer to Google owning Feedburner and possibly using its near-monopoly in feed serving to control other parts of the RSS ecosystem. I responded in my second post, and apparently convinced Fred that there was a problem, only to find out that my title wasn’t friendly enough.

I guess it’s all in the perspective.

How you look at things.

The new software I’m working on caused me to review a lot of the posts here since February 27 when I switched to the long-form blogging style, and most of my headlines and much of my copy is fairly irreverent. But that’s what makes a blog interesting. This is a medium where the person shouting the loudest is most likely to be heard. So when I want to be heard, I say it directly and strongly. And in this case, I think I understated the danger of concentrating so much power in Feedburner, and its successor, Google.

And Fred, your title wasn’t so friendly either. The problem isn’t “Feedburner and Dave,” the problem is “Feedburner and Google.” It’s a subtle technique. Deflect criticism by naming the critic. That’s what the Feedburner guys did when I asked questions about them before they were acquired. All of a sudden it was a personal issue with me. Republicans do it, Democrats do it (not quite as well), and so does the tech press. So that’s why we have blogs, imho, not so that we can make friends, rather so we can make truth.

I get itchy when I see would-be journalists praise people they write about. Same with bloggers. That makes me wonder who’s paying whom for what? I’d rather hear from people who aren’t being paid, and people who start out a piece saying nothing about how much they like someone. (Although I’m frequently guilty of this myself.)

And don’t forget this one…

“Ask not what the Internet can do for you, ask what you can do for the Internet.”

If you’re just taking and not giving, you’re fucking everyone who does.

Finally Fred is a New Yorker, as am I. Since when do manners come first? New York is a town for doing business, you get things done, say what you mean. This idea of never offending is very Californian, which may explain why I’ve had such trouble fitting in here. :-)

After denying it for nearly 15 years, baseball legend Pete Rose is admitting that he bet on baseball and on his own team while managing the Cincinnati Reds.

“I bet on baseball in 1987 and 1988,” the baseball great told ABCNEWS’ Charles Gibson in an interview to be aired on Primetime Thursday (10 p.m. ET).

“That was my mistake, not coming clean a lot earlier,” he said.

According to reports, Rose’s confession is the crux of his new autobiography, “My Prison Without Bars”, which will be released Thursday. In his interview with Primetime, Rose says he bet without knowing how drastic the penalties would be.

“You don’t think you’re going to get caught,” Rose told Gibson. Rose said he didn’t think he was special or above punishment.

Regarding Bonds. Though there is no proof he did take performance enhancing drugs (rolls eyes), but by that argument performance enhancing we should disregard all those who use performance enhancing drugs and have yet to be caught. It doesn’t exactly foster the true sport atmosphere. It promotes people to continue producing drugs that are ahead of the curve regarding drug testing. And fans are to support this? Performance enhancing drugs are also in cycling world and have been for some time. Their image has been tarnished and true fans are fighting back. True fans should run from all sports where enhancing illegal drugs are being promoted and used.